


An Unexpected Party

by Ruusverd



Series: Echoes of the Fall AU [27]
Category: Echoes of the Fall - Adrian Tchaikovsky, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26214700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruusverd/pseuds/Ruusverd
Summary: The group reaches their home village, and decides to have a party now that they're all back safely.
Series: Echoes of the Fall AU [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863010
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	An Unexpected Party

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back, I think? I stole the title from Tolkien, but I promise they're not going to try to take a mountain back from a dragon. Geralt does drop some eaves, though,

They reached the village ahead of Jaskier and the others with him, which wasn’t unexpected. Jaskier wouldn’t have started back until news of their victory reached the Many Mouths, so they assumed it might still be several days before he arrived.

Geralt could understand most of what was said to him by that point with only a few missing words here and there, though his own words sometimes still refused to come out, particularly if he was stressed or upset. His mind still tended to wander and he sometimes forgot what he was doing or why when the wolf’s mind clouded his awareness unexpectedly, but he was doing much better than he’d expected. It had taken him weeks to recover this much the first time he’d worn the Champion’s shape.

As soon as they’d returned and shed their packs and armor, Geralt had curled up gratefully in his own pile of furs in their longhouse, despite it being the middle of the morning. Nothing said _home_ like one’s own sleeping place in Geralt’s opinion, and he’d spent far too many years without a constant place of his own to take it for granted. He dozed for an indeterminate amount of time, before he was lightly tugged back to awareness by hearing his name. He swiveled one ear without lifting his head, listening to the soft voices murmuring nearby.

“—not complaining, just saying it’s strange. It’s like it hardly affected him.” _Coen,_ his mind filled in.

“He couldn’t talk at all for nearly three days,” Regis’ soft voice countered. “That’s not nothing.”

“It took longer than three days for him to stop attacking people and trying to run away last time,” Coen said, “let alone speak. And he wasn’t as bad off then either, as I recall. I remember not recognizing him at first, with him being so changed, but I don’t remember thinking he was about to die on the spot.”

“Did anyone cleanse him of the priests’ ghosts?” Yennefer asked.

There was a pause.

“Yes,” Eskel said slowly, “but not right away. The whole plot to make a Champion was a joint effort by the priests of several different villages, and they hadn’t told anyone what they were planning to do. The whole tribe just woke up to this horrible howling and screaming, and we all went running to the temple in time to see the mons—the Champion I mean—kill the last of them. We didn’t even know it was Geralt until he Stepped back. One of our priests had been away checking on the wolf-wood, and they had to go bring him back and send for any others they could find to try to figure out what happened.”

“And then the bloody idiots tried to blame the whole disaster on Geralt to cover it up,” Lambert added, “As if the whole village hadn’t seen that thing he turned into. Everyone knew there was no way he could have done that to himself. And then I think they were hoping he’d die too and didn’t want to bother, so all in all it was… I don’t remember how long. Well over a week, but less than a month, I think, before Vesemir could get them to do anything for him.”

Geralt flattened his hears against his head unhappily. He didn’t like that they were talking about him, and he liked _what_ they were talking about even less, but he wasn’t willing to admit he’d been awake and heard them.

“That’s no doubt what made it so difficult for him to recover, then,” Yennefer said. “The ghosts must have clouded his mind further, and the effects lingered even after they were cleansed.”

_Eight-Ghosts,_ Geralt thought glumly, remembering the name that  had spread so far even Jaskier had  recognized him on sight by it when they first met . He suspected it had been the priests who had started  the stories associated with that name ,  bitter that he was walking around with the evidence of their brothers’ misdeeds written on his face for all to see .  It wasn’t his true name, at least.  His own tribe had been kind enough to name him White Wolf for the lost color of his hair and skin  instead , and they were the only ones who could give him a true hunter’s name. 

Like any young hunter he’d hoped his hunter’s name would be something commemorating a heroic deed or a hard-won victory, but it could have been worse. He doubted Eskel had been pleased to be named Claw Catcher for the  injury that had  sca rred his face, and Lambert had been called Bites Iron as a mockery, though he’d turned it into a point of pride.  Some were fortunate enough to erase an unflattering name with some more notable deed, but Geralt had known from the first that nothing he did in his life would ever be more  distinctive than his  changed appearance . And then of course the tribe was gone, and there was no one left who could give him a different name,  no matter what he did .

The conversation was abruptly ended when Cahir burst in excitedly with Lem and Ciri on his heels, announcing that Milva had spotted Jaskier and the others on their way back. The resulting cheers were loud enough that Geralt could pretend to have been woken by them.

Everyone came running to meet the unexpected arrivals, and the Crow sheepishly admitted he’d gotten lost and had never made it to the Many Mouths in the first place. A Deer scout had stumbled across him wandering around in circles, and had both told him it was safe to return and pointed him in the right direction.

Geralt wasn’t sure whose idea it had been, but somehow they decided to have a feast, or as much of one as could be gotten together in a few hours. They had much to celebrate, after all. Being together again, their victory at the Stone Place, Ciri’s new soul, and the removal of the looming threat that had been hanging over them for so long.

“And we will have a feast every year at the end of summer and beginning of autumn, to remember this day!” Jaskier announced grandly, “For what is the use of a tribe such as ours, if we can’t invent our own feasts and festivals?”

Geralt didn’t think they actually would celebrate every year, but the idea was pleasing and everyone seemed eager to believe it for now. They quickly divided up the work and set off in different directions.

Yennefer declared herself to be in charge of coordination, supervision and keeping the entire endeavor from dissolving into chaos. Since that was a very succinct description of the role all priests of the Snake were trained to fill on a much larger scale, no one could argue with her qualifications.

Milva was the best cook among them, by virtue of keeping hearth for first her father and then her mate for most of her life before joining them, but and no one wanted to push her back into the role of hearth-keeper after she’d gone to such lengths to escape it, and she didn’t look likely to let Little Hawk out of arm’s reach for the foreseeable future in any case. All the domestic chores were divided up on a rotation, so since it was Cahir and Regis’ turn to cook they took charge of preparing the meal for their impromptu feast.

Ciri and Lem weren’t trusted to cook, though for different reasons, so they were kept busy running and fetching things, and gathering flowers to decorate the longhouse.

Jaskier floated around cornering each of them by turns and demanding a full account of the battle, then sat and began trying to put them together into a coherent narrative, trying out different verses and then shaking his head and starting again. Geralt was sure it would bear little resemblance to actual events, but he hadn’t been fully present for most of it once the fighting had started, so he couldn’t say for sure. He knew he hadn't told Jaskier most of the important details of the Kasra’s plan, including his connection to Ciri. He was sure Ciri would as well, so if nothing else Jaskier’s story would be missing the actual reason the battle had occurred. _Let it be lost,_ he thought. _Some things don't need to be remembered._

Geralt and his brothers were dispatched to hunt for fresh meat, which suited Geralt as both of his minds were familiar with the rhythm of a hunt and he was unlikely to lose track of what he was doing. When they got back he felt confident in his focus, so he helped with the butchering, dividing up the carcass into what they would eat now, what they would dry into jerky, and what they would salt and preserve for later.

Once their contribution to the feast was taken care of, Geralt’s brothers had broken out the tribe’s supply of tools and started collecting building supplies for some project or other. They often helped out with the heavy repair work when they visited, things that the rest of them didn’t have the time or manpower to get around to. Geralt couldn’t remember any pressing work that had been waiting for them, but his memory wasn’t exactly reliable at the moment. Whatever they were doing, Geralt didn’t feel like getting pulled into a building project. He was improving, but he still sometimes found himself staring at an object in his hand, unable to remember what it was or what it was used for, or stopping in the middle of a task because he’d forgotten why he was doing it, and it seemed better to stay away from anything too complex or potentially dangerous for the time being in case his mind wandered at a crucial moment.

For lack of anything better to do, he gathered up the four discarded iron coats and began examining them for rust or damage from the battle. It wouldn’t matter if he drifted off while doing so, since he wasn’t going to try to work on them himself. He didn’t have the tools or knowledge to repair the iron shirts, but he could gauge how much longer they could put off having them seen to by a priest. He didn’t like the Wolf priests, but he did miss having ready access to their forges. Once he had finished he put the armor away and went looking for something else that needed doing.

Geralt noticed that Lem and Ciri had run out of things to keep themselves occupied, and now Lem was trying to teach Ciri how to use her Stepped form in combination with the wrestling they’d always engaged in. Geralt made a mental note to take over that part of Ciri’s teaching as soon as possible, or have one of his brothers do so if he couldn’t. The wrestling itself would work equally well for both of them, but a wolf’s jaws and build weren’t quite like a hyena’s and there were better methods for Ciri’s new shape than the ones Lem was showing her.

He didn’t see anything else productive that was within his current capabilities, so he visited Plotka and told her about what had happened, then went to sit with Milva in what passed for the village center and helped keep Little Hawk entertained and out of the way until it was time to eat.

After they’d eaten, everyone was content to sit around and tell stories until it was time to sleep. Jaskier was the only trained storyteller among them, but the others made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in talent.

“Tomorrow we can find a place to talk,” Yennefer said in a low voice as they settled down for the night. “I still owe you an explanation.”

Geralt made a face. “Fine, but I don’t want to think about it tonight,” he murmured back, shifting around on their furs to get comfortable. “Let’s just sleep.”

Yennefer murmured agreement, and they curled up together, falling asleep with their tribe all around them.

**Author's Note:**

> Either this section or the next is pretty much the end of the "main" plot line, though there is still more to the series because I'm not finished playing in this sandbox yet. A new mini-arc starts after that, but everything that comes after this chronologically will not be following the Witcher plot anymore, because I have run out of plot line to follow and I didn't kill off 90% of my main characters, unlike *some* authors I know...


End file.
